Abstract
Concealed development of many animal embryos prevents examination of development and limits the application of embryo manipulation techniques aimed at understanding developmental processes. In embryos developing in utero, such as in mammals, it is necessary to dissect embryos from the mother and, upon manipulative intervention, to implant them back into the recipient. Parasitic wasps present a promising system for understanding the evolution of early developmental processes. In basal ectoparasitic species that lay eggs on the surface of the host, it is possible to adapt embryo manipulation techniques developed in Drosophila. However, their derived endoparasitic relatives, which exhibit various modifications of developmental programs, undergo concealed development within the host body. For example, the parasitic polyembryonic wasp Copidosoma floridanum oviposits an egg into the egg of the host moth Trichoplusia ni. The host larva emerges and the parasite undergoes development within the host body, preventing embryo manipulation as a means of examining developmental regulation. Here we present a protocol for embryo transfer that allows the transplantation of C. floridanum egg into the host egg. This approach opens a new avenue in the application of various embryo manipulation techniques aimed at understanding the evolution of embryogenesis in endoparasitic Hymenoptera. In addition, this approach has potential for the development of other tools in C. floridanum, such as transgenesis and reverse genetics, which can also be extended to other endoparasitic species.
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Acknowledgements
We thank E. Zhurov for embryo transplantation, Rachel Hoang and Ray Hong for critical reading of the manuscript, and E. Zhurov and I. Craig for the artwork. We thank J. Whistlecraft, L. Verdon, and N. Terzin (Southern Crop Protection and Food Research Center of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada) for C. floridanum and T. ni rearing and R. Kulperger for the statistical analysis. P. Lasko kindly supplied us with anti-Vasa antibody. This work was supported by grants from the Premier's Research Excellence Award, Canadian Foundation of Innovation, Natural Science and Engineering Research Council and Canadian Space Agency (to M.G.).
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Zhurov, V., Grbić, M. Transplantation of a polyembryonic wasp embryo: a technique for transferring endoparasitic embryo into the host egg. Dev Genes Evol 215, 645–650 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00427-005-0020-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00427-005-0020-0